Clarity
by Michelle Birkby
Summary: He realised he loved her in a moment of simple clarity EO. 2nd Chapter up, and this is now a bit angsty.
1. Elliot

**My very first Law and Order:SVU fanfic. Set during the third season, because I haven't seen any further.**

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He can remember with absolute clarity the first moment he realised he loved her.

It wasn't in a moment of great danger. Not one of those seconds where a gun was pointing at her and there was nothing between her fragile body and the ripping force of the bullet but empty air and her own persuasive soft voice. Then he was worried, hell, terrified, even. His hand had shaken as he reached out to her after the perp had released his gun. His heart had thumped so loud it drowned out the traffic, and the relief that she was safe overwhelmed him, making his knees weak, but he didn't know he loved her then. It was just one detective's concern for his partner. Perfectly natural.

It wasn't in one of her rare moments of distress. Not after she'd dealt with child rape and murder, nor after a case of a drunken mother abusing her daughter. He'd ached for the pain he'd seen in her eyes. His heart had broken as he watched her steel herself for the very worst of human nature, for the crimes that he knew struck right to her soul. When he'd come across her crying in the corridor, believing herself alone and unseen, he'd reached out to her without a second thought. He'd wrapped his arms around her, and soothed her sobs with gentle words, and after a moment's reluctance, she had finally lost herself in his embrace.

But it was just one friend's concern for another. Just a close friendship. Nothing more.

He watched her in the courtroom, magnificent in her anger, but restrained, and swelled with pride, and still did not love her.

He slipped easily into their double act in the interrogation room, reading her mind, throwing her cues he knew she would pick up, fitting so comfortably into their partnership, a closer fit than he had with his wife, and only admired her, did not love her.

He worked beside her, side by side, had her back, knew she had his, knew her every emotion, her strengths, her weaknesses, her anger, and aware that she knew everything good and bad about him, more than his wife knew. But still did not love her.

It happened just now, in the squad room. She handed him his coffee, and he thanked her. She sat down opposite him, and opened the file in front of her. She glanced over to Munch, and called an enquiry, and grimaced at the answer. And he sipped his coffee, and looked over at her, and thought,

'I love you, Olivia Benson'.

Love came to him quietly, not in a moment of great drama, or desperation, not in a lighting strike, or in an earth-shattering revelation. It came to him softly, but persuasively, realising and knowing he was completely, wholly in love with the woman sat opposite him.

And for now it didn't matter that he didn't know if she loved him or not, or that there was nothing he could do, he was a married man. He was content just to spend his days with her, talking to her, always beside her, protecting her, knowing that he loved her.


	2. Olivia

For Olivia, clarity came with a high price.

Olivia had always cared for everyone. All of her friends were precious. All her victims deserved her compassion. Sometimes, even the killers got her sympathy. Her heart was full of love, and she poured it out unstintingly. She had even tried to love her mother.

She cared for Munch, and Fin, and Cragen. Each, in their own way, had a place in Olivia Benson's compassionate heart. And of course she cared for Elliot. He was her partner. Possibly her closest friend. He welcomed her into his family, into his place of safety, and she responded by loving them all.

Yet still, Olivia Benson, the woman who cared for everyone, who gave her heart completely and unquestioning, went home alone at night.

She told herself that it was because she was too wrapped up in her work. Perhaps seeing all those destroyed and dangerous relationships day after day had left her too wary. Maybe it was because her fraught and almost fatal relationship with her mother had damaged her too much, left her unable to form close relationships. Maybe she just hadn't met the right man yet.

Maybe she had, and he was married and unreachable.

But that was a thought she firmly denied she ever had. Just like she denied the way his presence made her feel, denied the way his rare smile warmed her, denied the way his strength supported her, and his affection for her warmed her, and his touch soothed her pain.

Olivia denied all those feelings. And if she ever suspected she cared for Elliot a lot more than she was supposed to, she pushed the feeling firmly down, ignored it, pretended she had never seen it.

Until today.

Olivia should have seen this coming. She was a cop, after all. And the criminals the SVU chased cared nothing for human life, even more than the usual scumbags the NYPD hunted down. Chances were more than good that one of them would get shot one day.

Problem was, she always assumed it would be her.

She always played bait. Always deliberately placed herself in danger to save the innocent. She almost invited death to come running to her. Forgetting that every time she went into danger, Elliot was right behind her, beside her, protecting her.

The bullet she had been expecting hit him instead.

And now his blood ran out of him, into the gutter, down the street, soaking the stones. She was trying to stop the bleeding, trying to hold it in, but her hands were so small, and the hole so big. Help was coming, if he could just hang on, just a little longer.

She could him whispering hoarsely, a name, over and over again. She bent down to listen, expecting to hear Kathy's name, or Maureen's.

"Liv." He said, coarsely. "Liv." He was looking up at her, his eyes so soft and clear, so loving. He was holding on to her arm, tightly, as if by clinging to her he could cling to life. She clung back, desperate to keep him here, with her, where he belonged, by her side, always by her side.

And then she knew. As her heart was being ripped out of her, as she desperately tried to save him, as he slipped away from her, she knew.

She loved him. More than anyone else. More than she had ever loved anyone.

For Olivia, the moment of clarity came stained in Elliot's blood.


End file.
